R. Lee Ermey had more than 60 film credits to his name. His first was in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' https://t.co/A2tnCu996W
— Variety (@Variety) April 15, 2018
My father had a very odd military career in Korea — he was in the Navy and was happy to be there, and then he made the mistake of taking a course in map-reading, just in time for Inchon* — and he ended up getting a really good look at the Marines. He always swore that R Lee Ermey was toning it down. And also that they would have eased out Private Pyle long before, you know.
My condolences to Mr. Ermey’s family and loved ones.
Moe Lane
*My dad was happy to tell me about how he got banned from the Royal Hawaiian hotel and, apparently, Hong Kong itself (he had help with that one), but didn’t discuss the other stuff much. Or at all.
R. Lee Ermey is training God’s Innumerable Holy Legions right now and I’m take great comfort in that fact.
.
Full Metal Jacket is on Netflix, if you want to go watch it.
Dang. Pneumonia takes another one from us.
Rest in Peace, Sergeant.
Very much so for the second portion. Boot camp is essentially one long psychological stress test.
And if you’re going infantry, you’ll then spend a month or two on a special mess duty to see how you operate on 4 hours of sleep a night for extended periods.
This is followed by all the mind#(*$s of School of Infantry (Land navigation is a glaring example, where you see two ravines in front of you, but the map only shows one. Or where the scale has been “helpfully” labeled wrong so that distances are off by a factor of 10. And your maps are black and white xeroxed copies of bad copies that are often distorted where they’re not illegible.)
.
As to the first part, nah. It’s much more free-wheeling than that. More along the lines of making a pepper-spray bomb with an MRE heater and tabasco sauce for a rival platoon to unexpectedly enjoy. (OK, sure. The Gunny did do an excellent impression of R. Lee Ermey over that particular one.)